ÔHackerÕ takes on a whole new meaning for golfers

Date Published: {J}

The term ‘hacker’ has been familiar to golfers going back into the ages, while it’s also been a regular part of the language of computer users in the more modern era.

In one sphere it meant someone breaking into your computer system, while in the other it was a put-down for someone who might be more charitably described as hardly the most adept at the game of golf.

The life-long friends who play for a few euro may be as close as you will find, but a casual passerby listening to some of the exchanges on the golf course might be led to believe from the tone of some of the abuse heaped on playing partners that the enduring friendship of decades could be under threat. ‘Hacker’ is the most charitable term.

In view of this, I find it possible to believe that Brian Cowen and Seanie may not in fact have engaged in conversation on Anglo Irish Bank in that game in Druid’s Glen!

However, a whole new meaning to the term ‘hacker’ has come into use in recent months among golfers in Galway – for even the most computer illiterate of them have had to become familiar with terms like ‘internet’ and ‘logging-on’, not to mention becoming accustomed the time on the ‘server’ being the dictator of their lives on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Fact is, that no matter what it says on RTE, on Big Ben, or on the Grenwich Mean Time signal, the only time that matters is what I call ‘Galway Golf Time’ – the time as shown on the corner of your computer screen when you log-into the Galway Golf Club website and go to the page which allows you to book a time on the tee for the following Saturday or Sunday.

You see, the computer has replaced the tried and trusted butt of the pencil in the world of Galway golfers. Time was – a few months ago – when a sheet of paper went up in the clubhouse and you used that butt of a pencil kept behind your lug to physically write down your name at the preferred time you wished to play the following weekend.

It took me some time to realise that ‘Galway Golf Time’ could be different to all others by some significant seconds. My method of judging the time to log-on used to be listening for the start of Donncha O Dulaing on Failte Isteach on a Saturday night at 10pm. I have to confess to being a fan of some of the come-all-yez in which he revels, not least Delia Murphy with Three Lovely Lassies From Banion.

But then, to my horror, I discovered that ‘the time’ in the rest of the world doesn’t matter a jot on a Saturday night – it’s the time on the Galway Golf Club server which dictates. And, one second late, and you are in for a shocker . . . for, out there, are hundreds of other golfers all with their fingers poised over the keyboards of computers, and all waiting to get a tee-time.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.